1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a medical data managing method and a medical data filing system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a method and an apparatus capable of managing and filing medical data in a clustered form on a recording medium, e.g., optical disks.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In various medical electronics apparatuses such as an X-ray CT (computerized tomographic) imaging apparatus and an MR (magnetic resonance) imaging apparatus, a plurality of imaging data are acquired and time-sequentially recorded on recording mediums, e.g., optical disks, and at any time, are searched/retrieved from these recording mediums for medically diagnostic purposes.
More specifically, in accordance with one conventional data filing system, medical data such as CT image data acquired by imaging a biological body under medical examination are time-sequentially stored/recorded in a serial form on each of plural optical disks in such a manner that after one optical disk is filled with a series of medical data, a subsequent optical disk is used to record another series of medical data in a serial form. In other words, the medical data are merely, time-sequentially stored in the optical disk without classifying or categorizing contents of these medical data.
Referring now to FIG. 1, an overall arrangement of one conventional medical data managing system will be described. In this drawing, medical data is inputted from a medical data input unit 1 into a data file control unit 2. Then, a series of medical data are time-sequentially recorded on a relevant optical disk (not shown in detail) employed in an optical disk autochanger 3 under control of the data file control unit 2. After these medical data have been time-sequentially stored in such a serial form on the plural optical disks, data search/retrieval operations are carried out by a medical data search/retrieve unit 4 through the data file control unit 2. In this conventional medical data managing system, there are many possibilities to load a desirable optical disk on the disk drive of the optical disk autochanger 3. That is, a large number of optical disks must be frequently selected to be loaded on the disk drive in order to search/retrieve desired medical data from the relevant optical disks. For instance, in case that after one medical data has been searched/retrieved from one recording region of an optical disk, another medical data is searched/retrieved from another recording region of the same optical disk, an overall search/retrieval time requires only several hundreds milliseconds. However, if such a data search/retrieve operation is performed by replacing one optical disk with another optical disk on the disk drive by using the mechanical replacing device, an overall search/retrieval time amounts to several tens seconds. Accordingly, a throughput of this conventional medical data managing system becomes rather low.
A more effective medical data managing system is required in the medical electronic field.